Is this the little girl I carried?

Our Beautiful Daughter

She has grown up to be a funny, smart, talented and nice young woman

Which picture is your favorite?

Sunsets and Halloween

Sunset off our deck

Two boys on Halloween

Scary

Finnish Chocolate is tasty

Dallin sent us some Finnish chocolate

yum

More of Danika's pictures

Danika has a talent for photography. She took these pictures in Utah.

Danika's photos

Danika loves to take pictures

Cute freckles

Fall in St. Louis

Our House and backyard.

The Grimms mark their property

We Like Post it notes at our house. They are good for making sure others know what is rightfully yours.

Connor was sick so he had his own juice.

Tanner's note says "Tanner's. Ask, and if you take one when I say no, you die"

HOMECOMING - Lafayette High School

High School homecoming here in St. Louis is a highly celebrated event.

Every day, during the week of homecoming, they do something different at the school. The theme this year was the 80's. Ahhh the memories. Each class decorated their hallway and they had several events during lunch which included jousting and eating contests. They had a powder puff game and lots of other fun things for the kids. Friday before the game they hold a parade. Each club/organization can enter a float. From what I've heard, the weather during the parade each year is usually warm and enjoyable. This year it was cold and drizzly.

Danika is in choir and they entered a float. Their float was based on Ferris Buehler's Day Off. Remember in the movie when Ferris is on a float singing and dancing to "Twist and Shout"? This is what her choir did. A boy in our ward was Ferris and Danika walked behind the float. We didn't get any pictures of the float but we did get one of Danika.

Danika wanted to know if I had leg warmers. Yes indeed I did. I only wore them during dance class though. I had fun telling her my memories of high school and the 80's. She agrees it was a good time in history and produced some of the best music.

Museum, Humidity and a Broken Arm!

What do these three things have in common??? They all have been experienced in our family this month...well, the humidity really never goes away.

So, first: We took the kids to the St. Louis City Museum. It sounds really boring, but it is actually a very fun place. Someone took an old shoe factory in down town St. Louis and converted it to a giant jungle gym (for adults too!). Very cool. As long as you don't think about the fact that you are crawling through a tunnel where 1,000's of people have been and that it probably has not been cleaned...ever, it is a lot of fun.


They have a ferris wheel at the top of the building as well as a big slide, a bus hanging off of the side of the building, an old airplane high above the ground and a slide that covers 7 stories inside the building. We have attached a few pictures for your enjoyment. The picture below is of Taylor at the top of a metal cage thing...










One thing I do have to say...being inside of a building with 1,000's of people, not much air conditioning and tight spaces equals a really stinky (very literally) place! What is really scary is it reminds me of a a time when I toured a facility that made clean rooms for electronics companies. They had a filtering system that was a critical part of the process. The tour guide explained that "all odors are actually tiny particles floating in the air". You can fill in the rest...

Humidity:


The humidity here never seems to go away. Fortunately, we experienced a very mild summer. Even at that, it is an experience to get out of the shower and sweat. Or, while working in the yard, I was amazed that I could sweat enough that it was noticeable on my jeans...yikes!


Cath & Danika have had a bit of a tough time dealing with the humidity when it comes to doing their hair. No pictures on this blog, but I might be able to sneak one in later.


This might be a component of St. Louis that we never get used to.


Broken Arm:


I am sure that you could all guess who the lucky one was that broke their arm...first kid in the family to break a bone. No surprise, but Tanner did this two weeks ago. He was the first to get stitches (and still holds the record for the number of times he needed them) and I told Cath back when he was a year old that he would be the first one to break a bone. I am just surprised it took this long!

He was at intramurals after school playing "capture the football" and slipped on the grass and landed on his wrist. He has a break in two places...fortunately, not on the growth plate. He will have a cast for another 5 weeks and then cannot do anything for another week after that.










Everything else is going pretty well. Our basement is moving along (very slowly). We hope to have it finished before Halloween. It is definitely starting to feel like fall. The leaves are starting to change here and the temperatures have started to drop a bit.


We still see a lot of "critters" around our house. Raccoons, possums, moles, deer, turtles, snakes and lots of bugs (all kinds). We had a bug get in the house the other day, and our brave boys tried to get it (check out the video). Let's just say Cath had to take care of it a few days later...

I have seen more road kill here than any other place we have lived. There is a rumor that the neighboring ward has a member that cooks up "road kill BBQ". Apparently, it is still "warm" when it hits the grill. I am glad we don't do any combined ward dinners.


We also had the opportunity to go to a Cardinal's game. It was a lot of fun! Thanks to Matt Holliday, who followed us here from Denver, the Cardinal's won. Holliday hit a home run in the bottom of the 9th to win the game. We were literally at the top of the stadium! We had the last row of the upper deck. Still good seats, but really high.


That's all for now...

School Is Now In Session

Well, the kids started school a few weeks back. Seminary started the week after. Danika & Connor are doing a great job getting up without our prompting...good thing, because to be as good looking as us, we need our sleep! :)

Hildi really likes to be outside and "hunt" for things. She found a turtle this morning and was freaking out! She barked and got so excited she was drooling all over the turtle's back. Visual is attached. She is still quite careful on the front porch (scene of the snake incident). She sneaks up to the edge of the porch and is quite jumpy at anything that moves.

Tanner & Taylor are finding friends. It is pretty easy for Tanner because he will talk to anyone. Young kids, adults, it really doesn't matter. He went over to one neighbor's house the other day just to see who lives there. The only kid is age is two years older, but other neighbor kids said he should meet him, so Tanner went right over. Taylor is now eating lunch with other kids and not just by himself. It was a rough first couple of days.

The twins are playing flag football again and I am coaching the team. With a reduced travel schedule, this is now possible. Very cool! I wanted to use the team name of Utes, but we had to use an NFL team name (rats!). This should be lots of fun. The age group is a bit broad, but fun nonetheless. Perhaps if we have a winning season, I can call Kyle (Whittingham) and he will give me a job...

Our Ward is filled with several "Zoobies" (a.k.a. BYU fans). They are great people and it is fun to tease them just like those in Denver or other places we have lived. My friend from Denver, Scott Sweeney would be so disgusted with me...I was happy when the Y beat Oklahoma, however!

Cath & I have new callings: Cath is a primary teacher in the CTR 6 class and I am back in the Young Men as the 2nd Counselor. It will be fun when the twins turn 12 in January!

Danika has found out that there are three classes she has to take to graduate. A phys. ed. class, personal finance and a computer class. That was not well received by her as a Senior. She is doing fine. She really like Choir and has some new friends that she is doing things with.

Connor is doing well in his first year at high school. He likes his engineering class and has been doing some NCIS type experiments in his biology class. He has met some very good kids in the ward as well as at school. No sports just yet, but he is currently planning on basketball (we'll see).

Tanner is as outgoing as ever. I already shared the neighbor experience. He is a good one to have in the family because if there is anything we need to ask someone, Tanner will do it for us! He likes middle school and is having fun in his classes. He already has several friends on the street that he plays football and basketball with after school.

Taylor is meeting new friends also. He is much more like Dallin! He actually enjoys his sewing class (yikes, I hope he doesn't see this). He is very creative and is very good with his hands. Taylor learned how to tie his own tie in one shot and does so now every week. He has actually been tucking his shirt in as well!

I was in New York City a few weeks ago at a meeting at the Empire State Building. It is a very cool building. I was very excited when one of our marketing people with us said "this is where Buddy the Elf's Dad works"! That was exactly what I was thinking! The only thing I was bummed about (other than not seeing Buddy) was the elevator did not have nearly as many buttons as the one in the movie! I had my boss with me, so I figured it would not be a good idea to "light up the Christmas Tree"... If you don't know what I am talking about, watch the movie "Elf" with Will Farrell and you will figure it out!

Cath & I stay busy with the house. We have to replace a door to stop a leak in the basement. We also have some landscaping work to do to prevent another leak that we just found yesterday. The basement finishing is coming along pretty well. We have much of the framing done and a lot of work with start this week. It should hopefully be done in the next 6 weeks or so. So, if you are planning to head out this way, we will actually have a place for you to stay (without kicking Connor out of his room).

That's all for now. I will work to be better at regular updates!

Aaron

Connor's 14 and Handsome

Well,

Connor turned 14 last Sunday and I had the opportunity to ordain him a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood. He is 6' 2.5". There may be one boy in all of the young men group that is taller. He is also quite handsome. But, when one has such great parentage (Cath & I, of course), what else would one expect?? The girls in our new ward, I think, have recognized the same thing...(nothing else needs to be said)

The kids start school next Tuesday (Aug. 18th). Orientations are this week...we will have to provide an update as to how that goes.

Cath & I took the kids to the Arch on Friday. We figured that we should visit the location that everyone recognizes as the main attraction of St. Louis. It was pretty cool. The observation point is such that you can see the entire city. The kids seemed to enjoy the ride up and down in the very small, but unique elevator.

Being close to the "south" provides some opportunities to see some different things. Shoulder-less t-shirts with car racing numbers and the matching hats were easy to spot at the Arch.

People are very nice here. They actually say "thank you"! (sometimes a lost phrase in the "west") It has been getting hot again. The August everyone told us about appears to be here. Today, the car registered 107 degrees in the garage. We have come to learn that the "regular" temperature has little meaning. It is all about the "heat index". Essentially it is what we were used to in the mountain states in the winter when we used the term "wind chill". It takes the actual temperature and adjusts for the humidity (another phenomenon that we are not used to and really don't like very much). Today, the temperature was in the low 90's with a heat index over 100. That is with a relatively low level of humidity (yikes!). Apparently, that ends some time in September.

We are getting settled in. We only have our bedroom and bathroom left to paint (at least for now). All of the other bedrooms and bathrooms have been done! We have most of our pictures up and many boxes put away.

Our basement work will start either this week or next. We are just waiting on the permits to finish. I will post some pictures as the process moves forward.

That's all for now...

Aaron 1, Snake 0

So, last week we reported the terrible snake bite incident involving Hildi and an unknown perpetrator. Well, on Thursday Cath went out to check the mail and prior to leaving the safety of the porch, she looked in the mulch right next to the walkway and front porch and saw it...a long brown slithery thing basking in the sun.

After a scream and bolt into the house, she told the kids to call me and tell me to come home now! I was able to get her on the phone and I heard "I found the snake". I promptly asked "did you kill it?" The response was, "no, I'm not going near that thing!" I then thought of Connor and figured he is bigger than me, he can do it. After explaining the perfect tool for the job (an edging tool that I bought when we lived in Utah 10 years ago, but exactly fitting for the task), I then listened with great excitement that the bad snake that bit our little "precious" would be paid back for the terrible act it committed just a week earlier.

As I listened, all I could hear is "do you see it?", "no", "oh, there it is", "aaaaaahhhhh, it's moving", "don't let it bite you", "aaaaaahhhhhh", "aaaaaahhhhhh", "we can't get it"...this went on for a while and I finally realized that this was my only chance to purge our home of this terrorizer, but I had to act quickly.

I bolted out of my office, phone in ear and told my assistant that I would be back in a while. On the way home, I knew it would take me 25 minutes to get there and I was hoping the snake did not go into hiding. The kids were keeping an eye on it so it would not get away. I was concerned because I could hear the voices in the background "I don't see it anymore", "where did it go".

Cath and Danika checked the internet to try and match up what type of snake it was. After looking at the non-venomous varieties with no match, Cath looked at the venomous list and there it was! It was clearly a Copperhead (yikes!).

I finally pulled up in the driveway and was proud to see my three boys on the front porch, all with some variety of long stick. A lot of show, but not much action.

I jumped out of the car and took in hand my tool of choice. I was poking around in the bushes because the boys could not see the snake. In less than 30 seconds, I found it in a bush curled up and not happy that I was poking around. My adrenaline quickly kicked in and the anger stage took over...here was a poisonous snake living right by my front porch, has already bitten my dog and terrorized my wife. This creature was about to be assisted, no thrust across the veil!

I took a swift strike at the snake and it moved quickly under the leaves. I could see the leaves moving rapidly, so I struck several times in the leaves exclaiming "mess with my dog and my wife and you are toast!" It was clear that I struck true as I saw parts of the snake on the ground and my tool. However, I could not see the rest of the snake. I realized that during my combination attack, the snake had realized that I was crazy and tried to get away. It headed for its den that it had made under the porch. I had the end of it trapped with my tool. I was thinking about how to get the snake out when I saw its head come out of the hole (big mistake). I quickly struck and that was it!

I asked for a pair of long BBQ tongs and pulled the dead snake from under the porch. As I held it there, my boys were cheering and I felt quite the protector of my family! Everyone was feeling pretty good until the snake's body moved involuntarily and they all screamed like girls (including the boys).

We got plenty of pictures of the event. The worst thing of all of this is that Cath made me throw away my BBQ tongs!

Aaron

Snake 1, Hildi 0

Well, we have continued to make progress on the house. We still have several boxes to un-pack in the basement. We are excitedly awaiting the treasures that we will find. One challenge that we had with this move is that our items have been spread throughout several boxes. We might find a box with some contents of a cupboard from the laundry room and the remaining items from that cupboard in two or three other boxes from different rooms of the house.

A great example was when I unpacked a box and found the computer monitor from downstairs. I was thinking that I would find the cable that was attached to the monitor at the time it was packed either still attached, or at least in a wad of paper in the same box...Not so. I have still yet to find the elusive cable. Perhaps I should look in the one that has "tools" on the outside??

During our un-packing, it became very clear that we will stick to the plan of only finishing 1/2 the basement...we need the rest of the space for our "stuff". It is amazing how much we still have. Even after discarding a lot, we still have a bunch down in the basement.

We have continued to run into some challenges with the house. We were thinking that the extreme watering from our neighbor's house was causing our backyard to be a bit of a marsh land. However, after tracking the source of the 3 inch deep standing water, we recognized that we had a different problem than Aqua-Man living next door. We called the sprinkler company and it turns out, we had a joint that was not properly fixed (who knows how long ago) and 7 valves that were leaking! This was the same company that did the "inspection" on the system, so they gave us a pretty good break on the repairs. Having said that, it was still a lot of money.

Last Sunday, we had a huge rainstorm. The water was literally coming down in buckets and sideways. We took the opportunity to check for any water issues. It did not take long to find a few. The boys thought it was a pretty cool game running through the house screaming "I found another one" as though they had just stumbled across the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Apparently, some items that we would have thought the house "inspector" would have found magically appeared after we closed on the home.

Fortunately, these appear to be relatively simple fixes...at least for someone that knows what they are doing (not me). When we have the contractor work on the basement, he will also address these issues. Turns out that the contractor also does siding (very handy)!

Yesterday, Taylor and Hildi went out to check the mail (a favorite activity of Hildi's). She came running into the house and was shaking her head badly and spewing spit all over the place

(which she never does). Cath was holding her and noticed that she had blood coming out of her mouth. We immediately took her down to the emergency room (very expensive!). They had to sedate her so they could look at what had happened. They told us they found a puncture wound on her tongue and cheek and that everything was consistent with a snake bite. Apparently, we have snakes in our area!

I am sure I know exactly what happened. Hildi was sitting on the front porch, enjoying the nice weather and watching the birds and Taylor check for mail. All of a sudden, a snake leapt out of the bushes and attacked her! I am sure that the snake jumped at least 10 feet to get to her!

The rest of the family thinks that she was poking around in the bushes and found a big long slithery thing of which she has never seen before. She likely then tried to do what she does with everything and grab it with her mouth and play with it. I am sure that the snake did not like that very much and bit back.

Either way, she was bitten and is in a lot of pain. Fortunately, she is eating. Perhaps she will be wary of these things in the future. She will either have to watch for flying snakes, or not try to play with them.

Aaron

Arrival in St. Louis

Well, we finally checked out of the Towneplace Suites after 7 weeks! We promptly jumped into the car and drove 13 hours to St. Louis and our new home (yikes!).

The trip actually went quite well. Cath's mom & dad met us in Denver and drove the Suburban over while we drove the other car. We separated the Twins (great plan!!) and that certainly made the trip less contentious.

We left at 2:30am MDT so we could take our time and still get to St. Louis before dark. We ended up stopping in Junction City (home of Fort Riley) where Cath & her family lived when her dad was stationed there. We found their old house and met the current "owners". They were kind enough to allow us to tour the home. Cath remembered a lot about the house and our kids seemed to have a good time seeing where their mom spent a few years when she was 10-12 years old. I saw for myself the "scary" hallway and room that Cath has talked about for the 21 years we have been married. I have to say, I can understand her points!

We had great weather on the drive over. It was a bit warm and at our lunch stop, Hildi made sure she found the shade!

Danika was a big helper with Hildi (but not driving, whew!).

Right before we left for St. Louis, Connor had his Eagle Court of Honor. We are very proud of him! He had a goal to finish his Eagle before he turned 14 and he beat that goal by 2 months! It was great to have a nice turn out from the Ward and we received a great amount of support from the Committee to make this happen quickly! We are sorry to leave great friends that did so much for Connor and our family.

The twins also had their "continuation" from 5th grade. I don't quite understand the process, but they made us proud by graduating from elementary school!

We were visited this weekend by our friends, the Howard's. The house is not quite put together, but it is great to have friends visit. We extend the invitation to our other friends and family...if you are passing through St. Louis, stop by...we have a place for you to stay.

We have lots of work to do still in the house. We have painted one room and a bathroom and spent all last week emptying boxes and cleaning. I shared some of the work that we had done in the bathrooms...let me just say that we had to do similar work in other rooms of the house. Things are coming along, however. I will attach other pictures later.

It is great to be together as a family in a house again. My travel schedule will drastically reduce, so we are very excited about that (at least for now). I may drive everyone crazy so they ask me if I can travel more :)

That's all for now...

Aaron